Anger, frustration over rapes in India: 'Mindset hasn't changed'

By Madison Park, CNN

Updated 1117 GMT (1817 HKT) April 23, 2013

Photos: Protest for 5-year-old victim14 photos

Protest for 5-year-old victim – Activists and supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party protest against the rape of a 5-year-old girl in Hyderabad on Tuesday, April 23. Demonstrations have taken place across the state since a man was arrested in the rape of the girl in New Delhi. There have been high-profile assaults in India since December, when a woman was gang raped on a bus. See photos of outrage over the sexual assault in December.

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Photos: Protest for 5-year-old victim14 photos

Protest for 5-year-old victim – Indian youths stand in front of a banner with the colors of their national flag in a silent demonstration in Hyderabad on April 23.

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Photos: Protest for 5-year-old victim14 photos

Protest for 5-year-old victim – Activists burn an effigy of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit during a protest in front the landmark of Red Fort in New Delhi on April 23.

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Photos: Protest for 5-year-old victim14 photos

Protest for 5-year-old victim – Activists protest in New Delhi on Monday, April 22.

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Protest for 5-year-old victim – A woman covers her mouth with a black cloth during Tuesday's protest in New Delhi.

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Protest for 5-year-old victim – Activists shout slogans after being detained following a protest in New Delhi on April 22.

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Rape protests in New Delhi – argue with Indian police outside the residence of Sonia Gandhi, chairwoman of the United Progressive Alliance, in New Delhi on Sunday, April 21, at a demonstration against the alleged rape of a 5-year-old girl.

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Rape protests in New Delhi – An Indian protester waves Indian currency toward police at a demonstration on April 21. Protests have swept through New Delhi since Friday. Many demonstrators are members of a political party of Arvind Kejriwal, a leading anti-corruption activist.

Story highlights

Since December protests after gang-rape, women say nothing has changed

Stricter anti-rape laws were passed earlier this month

Four months after a vicious gang rape left a 23-year-old physiotherapy student dead and triggered a national outcry over the treatment of women, more protests ignited in New Delhi after another brutal rape -- this time the victim was a five-year-old girl.

"Things have not improved," Dengle said of the police. "There is no fear, no sensitization, no awareness if a policeman, held responsible for law and order, is behaving this way to women."

A New Delhi police spokesman said that the offending officer has been suspended.

After a student was raped by seven men in a bus in Delhi in a case that brought international attention to India in December, authorities created stricter laws and vowed to increase the number of women working in the city's police stations. But the latest rape case begs the question -- has anything really changed in India since December?

"There is anger, frustration and introspection," said Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the Population Foundation of India, a group that works on women's health and rights. "Tragically, the people's mindset hasn't changed. Police behavior hasn't changed. Political behavior hasn't changed."

On a given week, sexual violence appears daily in the national newspapers -- a 16-year-old allegedly raped by her father, a landlord convicted of raping a tenant, a rickshaw-puller caught raping his 10-year-old daughter, a 19-year-old boy raping a 12-year-old mentally disabled girl, a 25-year-old raping his cousin, and a man throwing acid on his wife's private parts.

While these cases haven't triggered demonstrations, they indicate regularly reported attacks on women and children.

Earlier this month, India's president signed a law bringing stiffer anti-rape laws, introducing the death penalty for repeat offenders, and imprisonment for acid attacks, human trafficking and stalking. It also punishes public servants, such as a police officer, who "knowingly disobeys" the laws required in an investigation.

"The gruesome assault on a little girl a few days back reminds us once again of the need to work collectively to root out this sort of depravity from our society."

Children are even more vulnerable, said Dengle. Many girls don't feel safe using public toilets, walking to and from school where they're teased by males, she said. They can't trust rickshaw drivers who take them to school.

Some families restrict women and girls' mobility because of the risks, said Aparajita Gogoi, the National Coordinator for the White Ribbon Alliance, which is a grassroots campaign for women's health, at a U.N. Foundation panel for journalists that took place earlier this month.

The practice is long-standing, Dengle said.

"Parents feel scared that girl can be abused on the way [to school]," she said. "The best thing [they think] is to keep her at home and this was happening even before all these rape cases. Girls didn't feel really safe."

In a late, sunny afternoon in Delhi, the dusty streets are crowded with mostly men. The women appearing in public are in groups or accompanied by other men.

A survey supported by UN Women found 95% of females in New Delhi said they felt unsafe in public places. Comprised of 2,001 females and 1,003 males, the survey was conducted before the December 16 rape case of the physiotherapy student.

Sex-selective abortions, which are illegal in India, continue as the sex ratio, shown in the 2011 census, dwindled to 940 females to 1,000 males.

Having a girl means the family would have to pay dowries, which are also illegal in India.

"Should girls survive, often they get less food than their brothers, they're pulled out of school early to help at home or get married," Gupta said. "They may have babies before their bodies are fully formed and and consequently die of maternal mortality or become victims of dowry or sex-trafficking. All this may not happen to one single girl but at least one or more of these things could happen to an average girl in India."

Half of girls are married before the age of 18, U.N. reports find. India accounts for 19% of the global maternal deaths, according to U.N. report from 1990-2010.

Gogoi, a health advocate, laid a scathing critique during a panel discussion with journalists: "Our culture doesn't place much value on women's lives."

The other problem is that women are seen as objects of desire, said Dengle.

"We have to break gender stereotypes," she said, supporting new classes to teach gender equality. "All this education needs to happen at the school level. They need to be sensitized and educated on respecting women. Our education system lacks that."